Realmstuck - The Rise of Carnivalis
by boyAnachronism
Summary: In a world torn between Noble Houses, Clans, Empires, Dynasty's and Kingdoms, a great evil is rising amidst the chaos. A prophecy spoken to the members of 18 of these houses demands that only their children may stop it- together. After relinquishing their heirs onto the land as unknown bastards (at the prophecy's demand), the noble houses prepare for war- and for destruction.
1. Chapter 1 - John

The globe of frozen saliva hit the edge of the dull-grey stone and shattered into a million sparkling particles that faintly glistened in the morning sun, before dissipating completely. It was actually a pretty sight, and, if John had any sort of inclination toward metaphors, probably signified some sort of poetic importance. John blinked twice, staring, and his lack of inclination for metaphors led him to the not-so-poetic conclusion that it was _really_ fucking cold.

At any rate, he couldn't stand around spitting at rocks all day. The sun was out now and it was time to get a move on. John kicked off the back of the stone he was sat upon and rose to his feet, stretching in the sunbeams and walking toward his horse. With a double whistle, his horse, Liv, came galloping toward him, shaking frost off her mane. John climbed up, pulled his thick cowhide scarf over his mouth and went galloping off down the path, toward the denser woods. It was difficult to listen for howls through his thick earmuffs, but he would rather get blindsided by a pack of wolves than lose his ears to frostbite. Besides, his horse wasn't wearing earmuffs, and she knew the sounds of wolves, so he felt perfectly safe sat upon his literal high horse.

Speaking of his horse, he reached into one of the packs hanging from her flank and retrieved one of her favorite treats, a bright orange carrot, grown in the solariums of Summerfrost City. He fed it to his mount while they rode while stroking her mane. He felt bad for her, having to carry him through all this cold- and toward danger, too. She was a lovely skewbald, mare, but she had a bit of a temper, and was very stubborn when hungry. Nevertheless, she was John's favorite horse, and one of the few that the Way of Breath allowed him to borrow for his "outings".

While Liv munched on the carrot in his hand, he looked up and scanned the forest, looking for movement beyond the wisp-white sparrows in the trees. The ranchers outside his home village of Hummund were paying pretty good money for him to crack some wolf skulls, and he wasn't complaining. Well, he was complaining a little bit, but it wasn't his fault. Despite living in the Winterlands his entire life, he hated the cold, and couldn't wait for his next vacation to the Summerlands, where the weather was always pleasant.

Suddenly, there was a howling in the forest directly ahead of him, and a rustling to in the bramble to his left. Liv whinnied loudly, and John reached for the handle of his war-hammer, pulling it off his back and rolling off Liv's back. He tapped her on the head, and she turned around and trotted away; hopefully to a safe distance. There was another howl to his left, then two more, further away and to his right. Finally, the first beast revealed itself, a tall, slender black wolf with pale grey eyes came creeping out of the trees ahead of him, snarling. John had hunted enough of these wolves to know that this was the beta of the pack, and a female. The two to his left were still crouched somewhere in the bushes, yelping loudly to distract him. He tightened the armor around his shoulder, which was made of the fur from previously conquered wolves, and pulled on his helmet, a rusty iron thing that was nearly falling apart, but the leather strap protected his throat, his most vulnerable point when fighting a pack of these things.

He clanged the head of his war-hammer on the rocks as he approached the Beta, then slung the heavy thing to rest over his shoulder. The she-wolf barked at him, and snarled, trying to intimidate him.

But John wasn't a fan of theatrics. With the speed of a practiced hunter, John flung open his fur cloak, wrapped his free hand around the handle of the hatchet nestled in his belt, and whipped it out, winding his hand back and sending it flying toward the beta.

The shadow-pelted beast was swift and strong, but not nearly fast enough, and the hatchet dug deep into her shoulder as she hopped to the left, trying to avoid it. She flipped and rolled over, yelping, and the two wolves in the bushes- one black and one brown- came sprinting out, barking ferociously. John slammed his hammer down with both hands, glancing against a large stone, sending a loud ringing through the trees and startling the wolves long enough for John to swiftly kick one of them in the snout. The other twisted its body and leaped at him. John raised his war-hammer and the wolf's jaw snapped shut around the handle, its power-packed paws kicking at John's legs.

John twisted the handle sharply to the right, snapping several of the wolf's teeth and sending it rolling across the snowy ground. He then spun around on his heels, sensing the brown wolf preparing to pounce. While turning, he swung his war-hammer in a broad sideways arc, the hammerhead was a silver blur in the morning light. It caught the wolf mid-jump, smashing straight into its trachea and effectively closing its windpipe, silencing the beast mid-yelp.

With the brown wolf dispatched, the black wolf rose to its feet, intimidated. Behind him, the charcoal she-wolf tried to stand up the handle of the hatchet jutting out of her shoulder. John could hear the two wolves in the distance approaching rapidly from behind him, and he decided to swiftly deal with the scared one before him.

He leapt forward, and the wolf jumped back, terrified. His four-legged foe was keeping its distance, so he swung the hammer sideways again, letting go mid-swing and sending it spinning toward the wolf, sweeping out all four of its legs. It quickly began to rise, and John tackled it into the snow, pulling his broad-headed hunting knife out of its scabbard on the small of his back and plunging it into the scruff of the beast's neck. The wolf yelped and kicked at him, but when John twisted and pushed the blade upward, there was nothing but a sharp whine, and then, stillness.

John scrambled forward and grabbed his hammer, jumping to his feet as two more wolves burst out of the bushes about 15 feet away, and immediately came sprinting toward him. John raised his hammer and brought it down, attempting to crush the leading wolf, a bright white alpha that was nearly invisible against the snow. The wolf jumped to the left, sliding in the snow and avoiding the crushing blow, as the second, smaller wolf pounced at him, teeth bared. John narrowly ducked out of the way of the dark-grey wolfling, and it tumbled over once before leaping to his feet behind him. John (who was now apparently full of stupid ideas) swung the hammer up and over his head, letting it come swinging down behind him without missing a beat, bringing the hammer down and falling on his back in the process- a dangerous move, but one that paid off.

John couldn't see what happened, but a sick crunching noise told him that his tactic succeeded, as did the warmth that rapidly flowed from the wolf's crushed skull, melting the snow around it before freezing into a slick red sheet. Before John could properly right himself, the alpha jumped onto his chest, snapping it's jaws around his throat and shaking it's head from side to side. John's helmet did it's job, protecting his throat, but the whiplash pulled several muscles in his neck, making him groan in pain. John fumbled around in the snow with his right hand, finding a sizeable rock and wrapping his gloved hand around it. With a grunt, he brought the rock crashing into the alpha's jaw.

Once.

Twice.

The third time set him free of the alpha's grip. John kicked it in the chest and it hopped backward, giving John time to stand up and raise his hammer- just as the alpha leapt at him again.

John ducked to the right and slung his hammer around, barely catching the wolf in the nose, causing it to yelp and fall backward, snarling. John, now in a crouching position, grabbed a handful of dirt and threw it into the wolf's growling face, trying to blind it, but failing miserably. Rather than being blinded, the wolf saw an opportunity, and snapped it's mouth around John's outstretched arm, trying to pull him down, and biting through John's thin hide bracer into his flesh below.

John grimaced, ripping his arm upward to pull the wolf closer, tearing his own pale flesh on the its fangs. John kneed the wolf in the chest, and stomped on the wolf's backward knee, causing a sickening _snap._ The wolf yelped and fell off of him, whining and growling, limping backward away from John. John let loose a battle cry and brought his war-hammer crashing down upon upon his head, obliterating its skull in one fell swoop.

John panted and wheezed in the now-quiet clearing, and pulled his knife from the smaller black one's neck. He looked around, searching for the beta, and noticed that somehow it had loosened the hatched from its leg, leaving it on the ground, coated in her blood. Now, it was nowhere to be found. A trail of blood and pawprints led out into the forest.

John sighed. The assignment was to kill a pack of five wolves, not four. He knew he had to find the missing beta; therefore, he wiped clean his hatchet, slung his hammer over his shoulder, and set off into the dense foliage in search of his quarry.

The wolf couldn't go far on its injured leg, but as it turned out, it didn't intend to. John could see it up ahead, clamoring up a series of raised flat stones, made smooth by a river, which was now frozen solid. The wolf saw him approaching and barked ferociously, trying to sprint away down the frozen riverbed. John gave chase, following it down the frozen river until it disappeared into a small cave by the edge of the stream. John ducked into the cave after it, hatchet at the ready.

The cave was dimly lit by sunlight, and about the size of a larger room at the local inn. The beta wolf was lying in the corner in a pool of its own blood, panting heavily, still snarling at him, but too weak to stand and face him. John grimaced, slowly making his way over to the crumpled she-wolf with his hatchet raised.

John wasn't an animal or a heartless mercenary. He didn't kill the wolves for fun or for sport. He used them for meat and hides, and didn't let their deaths go to waste as a sign of respect. More importantly, he _needed_ to kill them to protect his town. A collection of bones along the opposite wall showed how many innocent townsfolk and farmers this pack alone had killed in their search for food. Still, as John raised his hatchet into the air, he had to close his eyes. As he brought it whistling downward, he tried his best to ignore the sharp whelp that signified this once-proud beast's unceremonious demise.

After a few seconds of solemn contemplation, John went out to the riverbed and whistled for his horse that the job was done. He waited silently until he could here the clopping of her hooves, then set to work starting a fire by the side of the river. After it was built and smoldering, he broke off a large chunk of frozen river and placed it in a pot over the fire.

He felt his neck for cuts. The rough leather had cut into his neck on both sides. They cuts weren't deep, but to avoid infection, he knew he needed to care for them properly. He searched through a leather pouch on his waist and found a vial of crushed Witch's Weed, and poured roughly a tablespoon of the fuchsia dust into the now-boiling pot of water. After mixing the concoction thoroughly, the liquid turned a bright pink, and John dipped a clean rag into the boiling liquid, and pressed it to his cuts. It stung, but Witch's Weed was famous for its curative properties, and John knew this precaution would prevent infection. He let the liquid go down in temperature slightly before pouring it over the deep wounds on his forearm where the wolf had bit him, then he bandaged the wound with some sterile bandages.

This whole affair took several minutes, and monopolized John's attention- so much so that he didn't notice the quiet whimpering in the cave behind him. Until now. John spun around, expecting another angry wolf, but saw nothing. He cocked his head to the side, listening. Deep in the cave, John could hear something whining. He gathered his supplies and ducked back into the cave, what he saw made him cringe and groan.

Gathered around the beta's corpse were four tiny, crying wolf pups, each a different color - auburn, white, grey and black. The four pups were trying to suckle on the mother, but couldn't find the teats without any assistance. It was a pathetic sight.

John put his palm to his face, groaning once more.

"God dammit." He sighed. "What are you going to do now, Frost?"

* * *

 _I know what you're thinking. "Frost? But John's last name is Egbert!" Well yeah, but you see, Johnathan here is a bastard of the acclaimed House Egbert. This will SURELY play a role later. Much later. But for now, you're gonna have to deal with the fact that he goes by Johnathan Frost, Frost being the Bastard name for the Winterlands. All the other main characters are bastards too, so be ready for that. It's sort of a key part of the story. Anyway please give feedback, this is my first really published work. Thanks!_


	2. Chapter 2 - Dave

"Alright lads, that's another one gone, let's get movin." The watch Captain said behind a mouth full of coyote chew. Dave adjusted his sword belt from his spot leaning against the wall and followed the other five men down the street, carefully stepping over the dead thief laying in the middle of the road. He looked over his shoulder once he passed, watching the nearby peasants descend on the thief, picking him apart for anything of value. Dave scoffed at the sight. Even in a big city like this, the civilia are poor and greedy.

That's not to say that Dave thought more highly of nobles. Hell, the way they worked over and killed the thief back in the streets was proof that the guards were just as shitty as the rest of Silvercrest City, as well. House Garland's motto was "Eye for an eye" not "eye for a life" after all, and Dave wasn't so sure that public execution was the proper method for taking care of mere pickpockets. That's why he stayed out of it. Well, that and the fact that doing any amount of work on behalf this prissy noble house was too much for him to handle. He joined the city watch for the free food and bed, not to clean up the piss-pot of a town and make some 50 year old failure of a watch captain's erection a little bit more bold and intimidating.

He didn't want anyone to get him figured wrong, he wasn't an asshole with a boner for murder like the rest of these "officers of the law", he had a moral compass, and it wasn't crooked so much as it was… well, numb to magnetic currents. Dave took advantage of the system as long as it didn't hurt anyone innocent, and the way he saw it, nobody who lives in a castle while his people suffer is "innocent". That's why he was happy to take Robbert Garland's money while shirking his duties.

Dave didn't think so hard about it, though. He didn't do the whole "introspective thought" thing, he just went with the flow. Dave's thoughts as he patrolled the streets with his "brothers" were centered on much more simple things: mainly food. It had been weeks since he'd had anything but dried pork, bread and cabbage soup. He decided he's spend his next payday on a nice meal at the Junebug in Old Town.

He was so immersed in the thought of a nice pulled pork stew that he didn't notice the slender bronze-skinned woman leaning, naked, against the wall to his left. The rest of the guards sure did, though, and their fixation successfully distracted them from the second figure, perched on the rooftops, a pouch in one hand and a dagger in the other. Dave was the only one in his squadron of six that saw him drop the pouch in front of them, and the only one who jumped out of the way in time to avoid the dense cloud of smoke that enveloped them afterward.

When the smoke bomb went off, the entire situation flew quickly off the handle, and Dave saw the whole scene unfold from his place on the ground, as he struggled up to his feet and unsheathed his rusted piece of shit sword.

The cloaked figure on the roof dived off the roof as soon as the smoke bomb went off, landing on the watch captain blade-first, cutting off his coughing fit with the sting of a black-steel blade. As soon as the watch captain's life had been snuffed, the naked lady pushed herself off the wall, reaching into a tall basket to her left to retrieve a long, thin scimitar, which she proceeded to stick through Corporal Darvish's left thigh, causing him to drop to his knees. From this position, she pulled a hairpin from her ebony hair, letting it fall about her shoulders in elegant curls, and jabbed the sharper end of the pin through the 16-year-old Corporal's eye socket. The Corporal screamed and clawed at his face until she pulled out her second hairpin and plunged it through his other eye, sending him into a fit of seizures, as was his tendency. "Darvish the dervish" they called him. The bronze lady scoffed, and stepped over his quivering form.

By this point, the cloaked man had successfully cut the throats of the rookies named Elbut and Ian, who were now rolling on the dirt, clasping their throats and sobbing for their loss of life through bloody gurgles. Sergeant Malcolm had unsheathed his fine iron blade in the commotion, and now that the smoke had cleared, he set upon the first foe he saw, which happened to be the cloaked man. The assailant artfully dodged each angry swipe, keeping the sergeant busy long enough for the naked lady to strut up behind him and cut both his heels with her scimitar in one stroke, bringing him crashing down to the floor in a flurry of swears.

Dave had stood around long enough, but wasn't stupid enough to charge in head first. It didn't appear that either one of them was paying him much attention, so he took the opportunity to creep into the naked lady's blind spot, bringing his sword up in a perfect arc and cutting deep into the wrist of her sword arm. It would have cut clean through her bone if the sword wasn't so shitty. The lady screamed, surprised, and dropped her scimitar to the floor with a clatter. The cloaked man was also caught off guard, and Dave kicked him in the chest with his right leg, while falling into a crouch to grab the fallen scimitar, replacing his Watch-gifted sword.

The cloaked man caught his balance quickly, and jumped around Dave's side to plunge the dagger into his ribs. Instead, Dave caught the bastard hy the wrist, pulling him in close enough to kick hard at his shin with his steel-toed boots, snapping his shin inward with a loud crunching sound, while also snapping his wrist to the right, making him drop his dagger.

The man hissed inhumanly as he fell, and it wasn't until now that Dave noticed the dull grey horns poking through the top of his hood. It was no wonder that he was covered from head to toe, this particular assassin was a troll. His horns and his bright yellow eyes made that perfectly clear.

Strange. Dave thought, cocking his head to the side as he turned to face the human woman. In this city, humans and nonhumans don't get along so well. I wonder why these two are collaborating to kill guardsmen?

The naked lady, scooping down to grab another shitty sword from the fallen Corporal Darvish, looked shocked. Clearly, she expected the Captain to be the main threat, not a mere recruit like Dave. She didn't study her targets well enough, obviously. She swung at him clumsily with her off-handed, incredibly shitty, weapon, and Dave easily deflected the blow off his stolen scimitar, moving in closer and closer, forcing her backward up against the side of the old brick building she was posing on a moment earlier.

By now, a crowd had gathered, watching and, of course, not helping a bit. Sergeant Malcolm was cursing and pushing himself up to his elbows, unsheathing his dagger and crawling over to the fallen assassin, plunging the dagger into his chest, yelling at Dave: "Keep her for questioning!"

Dave nodded at him, and turned toward the woman again, ducking out of the way of another half-assed swing that she started when he wasn't looking. Fighting dirty was okay by him; in fact, it was sort of his forte. He brought the scimitar up, ready to jab, and stuck it clean through the wrist-bone on her uninjured hand. She dropped her stolen sword, crying in pain.

"Do you yield?" Dave asked, boredly. The inane questioning bit was part of his job, he knew the lady had no other choice. She had lost use of both her hands. The girl looked right through him, tears welling in her eyes and a look of terror evident on her face. "Yo? You there? I'm telling you, yielding is in your best-"

There was a significantly startling thump, and Dave jumped away from her, but not without being streaked with blood. There was a feathered bolt sticking out of the woman's eye, pinning her to the wall by her face, and coating the brick hovel with a fresh coat of red. Dave spun around and followed the trajectory of the bolt. There was another man, standing on the roof where the troll assassin once stood, holding a miniature crossbow in one hand and a curved blade of Eastern make in the other. His face was hidden by a bright orange mask, but his spiked yellow hair stood out, shining in the sunlight brilliantly, the same color as Dave's own hair.

Dave cursed under his breath, readying himself for the second bolt which would surely be targeting him, but this bolt never came. Instead, the man returned his one-handed crossbow to it's holster, returned the katana to the sheath on his back, and bolted across the rooftop in the opposite direction.

Confused, Dave looked to Sergeant Malcolm, who saw the whole thing from his spot on the ground. "Well?" The Captain said, jerking his thumb in the direction of the blonde vigilante, pulling his dagger from the dead troll's chest. "Get after him, grunt." Dave raised an eyebrow at his superior, flicking his chin at the sergeant's bloodied heels. "I'll be fine, reinforcements have gotta be on their way by now. Now go, earn yourself a promotion."

Dave sighed and undid the fastenings on his shoulders, letting his breastplate clamor to the ground, the only armor the watch decided to provide him, beside his kneepads. Now that he was significantly lighter, he took off toward the building the bolt was fired from, scrambling up the stone wall and on to the rooftop. In the distance, Dave saw the man sprinting and leaping from building to building with the grace of someone with wings. Again, these assassins seem to underestimate the rookie in the bunch. Dave pursued him with vigor, executing each jump perfectly, quickly gaining on the assailant. The man looked over his shoulder, obviously surprised by his pursuers prowess. He allowed Dave to gain more ground on him before taking off again.

When Dave was within tackling distance, the masked man suddenly spun to his right dove off the roof, straight into an open well- four stories below. Dave gulped, pulled his arms to his chest, and jumped in after him, narrowly avoiding banging his chin on the way down. He fell in the darkness for a few seconds, then hit a pool of surprisingly warm, dark water. Dave waited until his feet touched soil, then kicked off the floor of the pool toward the surface.

Dave gulped in the dusty air of the underground cave, shaking the water out of his face and looking around for the masked man. He saw him, standing on the shoreline of the cave, his arms crossed. All around him stood figures with light-grey skin and dark horns, hooting and hollering at him, pointing various weapons of various levels of upkeep at his throat. Trolls. Dave never had any luck when it came to trolls.

"I have to admit, I'm surprised." The masked man spoke, muffled by the mask clinging to his face. It was a plain mask that wouldn't pass at one of the Duke's fancy masquerades. It was wooden, painted a bright tangerine color, with little slits for eyeholes and several tiny holes in the bottom for breathing. Perhaps in order to speak to him more audibly, he reached up and removed his mask. Dave was taken aback, the guy looked exactly like his older brother, but obviously a lot younger, and he was missing the lame goatee. His face was cleanly shaven, his eyes a brilliant orange, the color of a sunset in autumn. His sculpted jaw and pointed nose gave him a certain aggressiveness that wasn't entirely hidden by the coy smile playing at his lips. "Most city guards aren't so eager to actually do their job." His voice had a tinge of malice to it that made Dave very squeamish.

 _Oh shit._ Dave thought to himself. If this guy and his pals had a vendetta against the city watch, it wasn't going to be good for him. He didn't say a word, wiping the stale water of the underground lake from his eyes and staring coldly up at the man who looked like his brother's ghost.

"Elkroy. Diltan. Get him out of there, and mind his sword arm, it's quite sharp." The man said to two of the trolls to his left. It was obviously a command, but he said it with such a lack of malice that it sounded like a request. Clearly, the trolls obeyed him out of mutual friendship, rather than authority like it was in the City Watch. The two trolls moved up, baring their teeth at him and brandishing rusted curved sickles. As they pulled him out of the water, the man turned and walked away, yelling over his shoulder: "Put him in the holding cell with Terezi. I'll come by for him later."

 _God dammit David Sun._ He thought to himself, going along with Elkroy and Diltan, ducking out of the way of Diltan's jagged horn which jutted toward his face. _What have you gotten yourself into now?_

* * *

 _Okay, so something you'll probably notice is that I changed the trolls a TINY bit. Mostly, I just made their horns a dark grey instead of bright orange. Also- the blood caste system is a very very old tradition, that most trolls ignore. Racism among trolls still exists; however, it is fairly rare, except for in the Empress' territory, where the caste system is still enforced._


End file.
